Research Draft: Water Pollution Causes Tremendous Environmental Problems in China

My hometown is Hengyang, China. This is a beautiful city, which is surrounded by a pure and clear river called Xiangjiang. When I was little, I often played in the water. I swam, dove and went fishing there. Honestly, Xiangjiang River has become part of my sweet childhood memory. However, since a paper mill factory opened near Xiangjiang, the river is no longer pure and clear. The condition of the water is getting worse day by day and children’s laughs have forever disappeared in that river. At present, Xiangjiang River is seriously polluted. Unfortunately, this is not a special case. Many cities have similar problems like the changes in Xiangjiang River. Although the city’s economic boom is quite considerable, the pollution is also a considerable problem. Statistics from the Report on State of the Environment in china (2008) show that 68% of total lakes have been polluted and 17.6% of 68% lakes have been graded class V, which is considered to be seriously polluted. All the attendant environmental problems are substantial. Industrialization of cities (especially smaller ones) has enormously harmed rivers and lakes, because it causes large numbers of aquatic species’ deaths, damage to human health and greatly reduces the agricultural productivity of the areas.

According to the “Report on State of the Environment in China” (2008), 66% of the total amount of wastewater was treated before being discharged into natural environment. And among the remaining 34% of untreated wasted water, 30% comes from manufacturing. This untreated waste has a substantial impact on water bodies. One of the major consequences is the water eutrophication.
Eutrophication is a process whereby water bodies, such as lakes, estuaries, or slow-moving streams receive excess nutrients that stimulate excessive plant growth (algae, periphyton attached algae, and nuisance plants weeds). This enhanced plant growth, often called an algal bloom, reduces dissolved oxygen in the water when dead plant material decomposes and can cause other organisms to die (United States Geological Survey [USGS], 2008)
In China, water eutrophication occurred in 67 lakes (51.2% of the total lakes) (Yang, Wu, Hao, He, 2008).

Ideally, from a chemical perspective, under normal circumstances water has a certain solubility of oxygen. This dissolved oxygen is not only required for aquatic life to survive but also works as a reactant in a variety of oxidation-reduction reactions. These chemical reactions could effectively promote some pollutants to decompose and in the end accomplish water self-purification.

However, the balance has been broken by factories’ excessive pollution. Factories, especially small ones in rural areas, do not have advanced sewage treatment equipments. They often pool manufacturing waste directly into rivers, either for saving money or convenience. Some of the waste contains nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Once these nutrients enter water, they could cause fast growth of algae and other plankton, and deteriorate water quality (Western, 2001).

Under eutrophic conditions, dissolved oxygen greatly increases during the day, but isgreatly reduced after dark by the respiring algae and by microorganisms that feed on the increasing mass of dead algae. When dissolved oxygen levels decline to hypoxic levels, fish and other marine animals suffocate. As a result, creatures such as fish, shrimp, and especially immobile bottom dwellers die off. (Smith, Tilman, & Nekola, 1999)

Dianchia Lake is a representative example of this kind. In the early 1970s the water of Dianchi Lake was graded as Class III which is the lowest water class applied to drinking water sources. However, by 2000, due to rapid population and industrial waterwaste, Dianchi water has declined from Class III to the inferior Class V. Now, a once beautiful lake has been spread with dark green algae and dead fish in which the transparency is less than 1 meter (Lu, Yang, Gao, Yu, 2005). Taihu Lake, in China, has a similar eutrophication issue. It is the third largest freshwater lake in China, located in the Yangtze River delta, one of the more developed areas of eastern China. In recent decades, because of severe pollution, water quality in Taihu Lake degraded from Class I/II in the early 1960s to Class II/III in the early 1980s and then to Class IV by the mid-1990s. At present, 83.5% of the lake area is eutrophic with an inferior Class V ranking (Liu & Qiu, 2007).

Another severe consequence is that manufacturing waste could damage humans health. As mentioned previously, water eutrophication breaks the balance of aquatic ecosystem and triggers excessive algae. When the blooming algae die, they can produce lots of algae toxins, which are threats to human health. Recent investigation showed that algae toxin is the metabolized production of Cyanotoxins which may cause digestion problems and liver dysfunctions in human bodies. However, this kind of toxin was detected in the Yangtze River, as well as many rivers and lakes of Yellow River valleys due to the pollution that comes from manufacturing waste (Yu & Len, 2004).

Other factories’ waste from chemical industries and non-ferrous metal smelting industries may also affect human health, because their waste contains a high level of heavy metals. Once water is polluted, these heavy metals could enter human bodies through drinking water or the food from these waters by which people may get infectious and parasitic diseases, acute or chronic poisoning or even cancer (Occupational Safety & Health Administration [OSHA], 1992). For example, acute cadmium poisoning may result in symptoms like weakness, fever, headache, and chronic cadmium poisoning may result in cancer (lung and prostate) (OSHA, 1992).

A realistic example would be the Liuyang case in Hunan Province. In the end of July, 509 of 2,888 local residents had been found to have high concentrations of cadmium in the urinalysis tests. Two of them died. The government believed the reason came from metal pollutants that were discharged by a nearby Xianghe Chemical Company into the water (Xinhua News Agency, 2009). Another serious case happened in Fengxiang County in Shaanxi, 174 children from three villages were diagnosed with lead poisoning, with 851 of 1,016 children tested found to have abnormally high levels of lead in their blood. And the poisoning is very likely caused by pollution from a nearby smelter (Jia, 2009). These two cases show that people have been greatly suffering from the water pollution that is caused by industrialization.

Manufacturing waste also strongly affects agricultural productivity. Theoretically, polluted water influences agriculture primary through irrigation. As sewage enters farm land, a partial amount is directly absorbed by crops and the rest of the large amount is accumulated in the soil. On one side, in terms of the pollutants that go directly into crops, the plants would show symptoms of being poisoned, when the concentration of pollutants in the plant bodies is accumulated up to a certain level (Wang, Wang, Brown, Qu, 2007). For example, with excessive nitrogen, apples would mature late and have a dim color. However, with an increasing amount of polluted water, crops have been greatly affected. In the “Regional Survey of Soil Quality”, 31% of vegetables and 25% of rice have been diagnosed to have lead content which are above the Chinese Food Hygiene Standard in Jiangsu Province. In Guangdong Province, 23% of vegetables have been detected to have chemicals like endosulfan sulfate, endrin aldehyde, and heptachlor, which are toxic to human bodies (Cheng, 2003). On the other side, the remaining large amount of pollutants that go in the soil also has vital impacts. For example, when some acid pollutants enter soil, they would lower the soil original PHs. Consequentially, some microbes are killed because they are unable to adjust to the new PHs and the enzymes they made no longer function. Besides, acid pollutants also help soil produce toxins such as aluminum, and use up necessary nutrients such as magnesium and calcium which are good to crops’ growth (Rodhe, 2000)

According to the “Report on State of the Environment in China” (2007), the total water consumption for Huaihe River Basin is 49.319 billion cubic meters. Water consumption used in agricultural irrigation is 31.285 billion cubic meters, which makes up about 63.4% of the total consumptions. Due to the severe water pollution, In 2007, there were about 13 million square meters of farm land were subject to different degree of pollutions by manufacturing waste which made up one fifth of the entire surface land. Besides, 22% of the polluted farm land was considered severely damaged. Based on this result, national grain production reduced around 10 billion kilograms. Direct economic losses reach up to 12.5 billion Yuan (About 1.8 billion dollars).

Thrilling truth and statistics impressively points out the fact that manufacturing waste has damaged to our lives. It causes water eutrophication which results in a large amount of aquatic deaths and decrease biodiversity. It also threatens human health with heavy metal pollutions. What’s more, it could affect farm land by irrigation. Its acid pollutants could be absorbed by soil, which leads to a decrease of the soil quality and a reduction of agricultural productivity.
References
Cheng S. (2003) Heavy metal pollution in China: Origin, pattern and control . Environmental Science and Pollution Research. Vol.10.192-198. doi: 10.1065/espr2002.11.141.1
Liu W, Qiu R. (2007) Water eutrophication in China and the combating strategies. Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology, Volume 82, Issue 9, 781-786.
Lu JJ, Yang H, Gao L & Yu TY. Spatial variation of P and N in water and sediments of Dianchi Lake, China. Pedosphere.2005;15(1):78–83.
Khan FA, Ansari AA. Eutrophication: An ecological vision. The Botanical Review.2005;71(4):449–482. doi: 10.1663/0006-8101(2005)071[0449:EAEV]2.0.CO;2.
Report on State of the Environment in China. (2007). State Environmental Protection Administration of China. Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://www.sepa.gov.cn (in Chinese).
Report on State of the Environment in China. (2008). State Environmental Protection Administration of China. Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://www.sepa.gov.cn (in Chinese).
Smith, V.H.; G.D. Tilman, & J.C. Nekola (1999). “Eutrophication: impacts of excess nutrient inputs on freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems”. Environmental Pollution 100: 179–196. doi:10.1016/S0269-7491(99)00091-3.
Western D. Human-modified ecosystems and future evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.2001;98(10):5458–5465. doi: 10.1073/pnas.101093598.
Yu HM, Len Y. Elementary discussion on the harm of blue alga and its prevention and cure. Beijing Aquatic Product.2004;1(5):29–30.

Yang X., Wu X. , Hao H.L, & He Z..L. (2008) Mechanisms and assessment of water eutrophication. J Zhejiang Univ Sci B. March;9(3): 197–209. doi: 10.1631/jzus.B0710626

Rodhe, H. (2000). The global distribution of acidifying wet deposition. Environmental Science and TEchnology. vlo. 36, no. 20 (October) p. 4382-8.

Smith, V.H.; G.D. Tilman, & J.C. Nekola (1999). “Eutrophication: impacts of excess nutrient inputs on freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems”. Environmental Pollution 100: 179–196. doi:10.1016/S0269-7491(99)00091-3.

United States Department of Labor: Occupational Safety & Health Administration. (May, 2009) Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/cadmium/recognition.html

United States Geological Survey. (March, 2008). Toxic Substances Hydrology Program. Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/eutrophication.html

Western D. Human-modified ecosystems and future evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.2001;98(10):5458–5465. doi: 10.1073/pnas.101093598.

Xinhua News Agency. (August, 2009). 3 officials punished over cadmium pollution in Hunan. Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://www.china.org.cn/environment/news/2009-08/04/content_18261752.htm

Yu HM, Len Y. Elementary discussion on the harm of blue alga and its prevention and cure. Beijing Aquatic Product.2004;1(5):29–30.

Yang X., Wu X. ,  Hao H.L, &  He Z..L. (2008) Mechanisms and assessment of water eutrophication. J Zhejiang Univ Sci B. March;9(3): 197–209.  doi: 10.1631/jzus.B0710626.

Wang S, Wang X, Brown,C.L., Qu, X. (2007, December 5). Current status and prospects of agricultural drainage in China. Irrigation and Drainage, Vol: 56, S1. S47-S58.

Smith, V.H.; G.D. Tilman, & J.C. Nekola (1999). “Eutrophication: impacts of excess nutrient inputs on freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems”. Environmental Pollution 100: 179–196. doi:10.1016/S0269-7491(99)00091-3.

Western D. Human-modified ecosystems and future evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.2001;98(10):5458–5465. doi: 10.1073/pnas.101093598.

Yu HM, Len Y. Elementary discussion on the harm of blue alga and its prevention and cure. Beijing Aquatic Product.2004;1(5):29–30.

Yang X., Wu X. ,  Hao H.L, &  He Z..L. (2008) Mechanisms and assessment of water eutrophication. J Zhejiang Univ Sci B. March;9(3): 197–209.  doi: 10.1631/jzus.B0710626

Response 12: Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

            “Meat!  I need Meat!”  This is a common phrase heard in the United States today.  It is one quite commonly heard from a good friend of mine when he sees too much green and not enough meat on the table.  My wife will also say that this is something that I am known for saying as well.  America likes their meat.  But can America really afford to eat so much meat.  With animals being slaughtered across the nation and being raised just for our consumption, these animals live out their lives with enough room to maybe turn their head…before hitting the animal next to them.

            The United States has been eating whatever they want and all they want.  The result of mass food production is disease.  These animals are injected with so many hormones and antibiotics so they do not get sick and in their overstuffed quarters that they are not even very healthy for us to eat.  Over the last few years there have been all kinds of food poisonings, from salmonella to e-colli.  People are scared to eat out or buy food these days unless they know where the company got their food from.

            Other results from unhealthy eating in America’s lifestyle is obesity.  Everywhere we look food is unhealthy, go into just about any fast food restaurant and it is just overflowing with unhealthy foods.  I love living in Alaska.  I go out in the fall, shoot a moose and maybe a caribou and there is my meat for the year.  Healthy meat grown and raised quite literally in my back yard.  My mother in law does her own gardening and raises her own chickens.  My wife and I get some of those things and much better off for it.  Many people are doing these things, but America is not going in the right direction to make ourselves healthier or our planet healthier by raising and slaughtering all of this livestock.

Response 11: Reuniting a River

            Clean energy is a good thing, go green for mother earth, hybrid and electric cars, eat veggies.  All of these things are seen as good things for the earth and going green.  People say we need to clean up our act and clean up the earth along with it.  Sometimes when we are already green or are going green, it just might not be the best thing for our mother earth.  The Klamath River runs in both Oregon and California, the river has three dams on it that help provide energy to over 70,000 homes through Pacific Power.

            Most people would say that this is a good thing, that we are providing energy in a clean fossil-fuel free way.  That is true, but at the same time the river’s eco-system is being ruined.  Because of the three dams upstream the water does not flow quite correctly, the river upstream is also used for irrigation of some of the most fertile farm land in the Western United States.  By the time that the water gets to the lower part of the river, the Native American’s who have fished the river for over three hundred years have hardly any water for their salmon to spawn in or for them to fish.

            For the last few decades the farmers and the fishermen have argued over the water.  Now both are losing water and are finally getting together with the energy company to try and decide what is going to happen with their river.  No one knows what will become of the Klamath River and its citizens along its shores, but when trying to create a greener world all things must be considered in order to truly have a green earth.

Red Gold-The Red Gold of Bristol Bay (E.C.)

Bristol Bay, Alaska is the depository for the sockeye, or red salmon that return here each year to their natal stream waters. The rivers that empty into Bristol Bay are the breeding, dying and rebirth watersheds for millions of salmon that have been repeating that cycle in these waters for hundreds of thousands of years. Indigenous people, commercial fishermen and recreationists are drawn to these waters filled with sockeyes. Up rivers from the Bay, under the ground, there are other kinds of treasure-gold, copper and molybdenum. Pebble Mine is proposed by Northern Dynasty Company to extract those minerals to the possible peril of the Red Gold of Bristol Bay. The film Red Gold describes in detail the conflict Alaskans face with this proposed project.
Mines don’t just appear and disappear. Mining operations require infrastructure, power, waste disposal and roads. If Pebble proceeds it will contain the largest earthen-tailing dam in the world holding back treated ore reject, in a seismically active region. One spill could jeopardize the sockeye population. Alaskans are absolutely divided on this issue. Pebble Mine once in operation hopes to be the largest open pit mine in the world.
With Prudhoe Bay oil production lessening, many Alaskans see the Pebble Mine as a continuing employment and tax revenue provider. There are little opportunities in the bush for good jobs. The life of the mine is estimated at initially 50 years and would provide income and job security to those wanting to work. It would be an economic boom to the region.
But, one mistake, one earthquake, one failure of the dam and the watershed ecosystems could be lost forever. Is the project worth that chance? After viewing this film and listening to the differing opinions Pebble Mine does not seem worth taking the chance of losing these priceless watersheds. Watch this informative and insightful movie to decide where you stand.

Reading Response #13-Marine Mammals and Ocean Pollution (E.C.)

The open ocean cannot escape the pollution humans spread across the globe. Although DDT was banned in the United States in the 1970’s, it is used throughout third world countries to control agricultural pests and malaria carrying insects. DDT is categorized as a persistent organic pollutant (POP) in that it moves through the environment from prey to predator, rarely breaking down its molecular structure. PCB’s are also a type of POP. Both PCB’s and DDT are found in marine mammal tissue collected from whales.
The first study of its kind to determine this contamination of the oceans by testing whale tissue was conducted by the research vessel Odyssey over a five year period. Researchers discovered that whales in the Sea of Cortez had twice the amount of an enzyme that detoxifies pollutants in their blood stream. Perhaps this elevated enzyme is a physiological reaction to high percentages of POP’s in the oceans off the coast of Mexico. Mercury levels were also higher in these mammals as well as whales tested near the Galapagos Islands. The actual effect these contaminates have on individual whales is at present unknown. Another voyage to collect tissue samples from humans living near the oceans is in the planning stage.
As of now health effects related to these persistent pollutants in our oceans is unknown. We do know that DDT in our terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems causes death and cancers to creatures living there. DDT when used on crops eventually travels to our oceans and appears to concentrate in animals at the apex of the food web.
Hopefully, with further research, we can determine the extent to which the human race has forced its pollution all around the globe and on to the creatures that inhabit the vast oceans. We as a society must reduce these persistent chemicals that we have banned from our immediate space, yet we allow chemical manufacturers to distribute and sell to third world countries.